Too Bad She's Bad (1954)

A young Sophia Loren momentarily entrances a young Marcello Mastroianni as a ruse for her friends to steal his taxi; he thwarts them and sees her home, only to find out soon enough she's also a pickpocket, and her wily papa works a luggage-stealing scheme down at the train station. Minor yet exquisitely breezy and uncomplicated Italian farce, with sexy asides and feisty banter no doubt charming American audiences who went to see this under the title "Too Bad She's Bad". We never really learn when Mastroianni's cabbie actually falls for the curvaceous Loren, just as we never discover when her feelings for him become anything other than business-related, but that's the beauty of the set-up. No scenes punctuate the weightier issues because the movie is issue-free. The most substantial exchange of dialogue comes late in the film between Sophia and father Vittorio De Sica as they discuss love: "No one ever died from heartbreak," he tells her. "In fact, that is what prolongs life." ** from ****

Mama Mia! La Gran -Sophia- at the tender age of -20-. Moreover in the kind of role she'd almost never be able to play in America at -any- age, let alone at the pinnacle of her astonishing sexual impact. The costumer put her in one understated but thoroughly boggling outfit after another.The role suits the wardrobe and vice-versa. The Body going bawdy is exactly what the title infers, but with sufficient "screwball comedy" dialog to make it entertaining as well as educational. (The teacher -will- command your attention here. Yow.) Marcello is on top of his pre-Fellini game as the almost crafty-enough romantic lead, and De Sica does a fine local godfather. As a genre, post-war Italian cinema is almost always reliable, and this is no exception.Guys (of any age): If you've got -any- sort of a masochistic yen for being manhandled by a world-class, hormone-heating, trick-or-treater, -this- will make your day. Hahahaha.

Paolo (Marcello Mastroianni), a Roman cab driver, picks up beautiful Lina (Sophia Loren), who tries to steal his car. The complaint to her father Signore Stropianni (Vittorio De Sica) is no use - he is the head of a whole family of thieves. After Paolo realizes that involving authorities into the criminal doings of the Stropiannis is for nothing, he decides to fall in love with Lina.It's a zippy, very funny and entertaining comedy with the young screen couple Loren/Mastroianni and veteran De Sica, who really shines in here. Lina is an attractive woman, desired by many men and is never at loss of words. Paolo, a man of integrity and good will (at least it seems like he is), is not as faithful as his rich passengers would have assumed. Together they get deeply enmeshed with each others criminalities.The film was very successful in Italy and regarded as one of the highlights of the Italian comedy series of the 50s. Mainly the rising star of Sophia Loren (and Marcello Mastroianni), who shaped up well to serious competition to sexbomb Gina Lollobrigida, contributed to the success. And that made Hollywood keeping an eye for her talent (three years later she starred in Kramer's "The Pride and the Passion" among Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra).

***SLIGHT SPOILERS*** This off-the-wall "commedia all'italiana" pairs Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni for the very first time, and it is a delightful piece of nonsense from beginning to end. Roman taxi-driver Paolo (Mastroianni) is entrusted by his cab company with a new car, which he manages to drive into little fender-benders virtually every ten minutes. His biggest worry is his encounter with beauty Lina (Sophia Loren). It isn't long before he realizes that she and her two "boyfriends" hire him to take them to the beach just so they can attempt to steal the car.A little recourse to the girl's dad doesn't help. He turns out to be a thief himself who specializes in suitcases of wealthy travelers. The entire family, as a matter of fact, is a group of incorrigible thieves, right down to wallet-lifting grandma. Lina's father is played by Vittorio De Sica in a characterization that for me steals the entire show. You can't help liking a guy who, while a compulsive bag-snatcher, constantly laments the decline of morals and values of the times.Paolo is helpless in trying to convince the authorities about the crooked family's shenanigans, even after witnessing Lina's fingering of a wallet on a bus. He cannot compete with the girl's crafty wiles or dad's lunatic manipulation of reality. It is inevitable, of course, that Paolo and Lina fall in love, that he propose to keep her on the right side of the law, and that in their final public display of kissing, all will be forgiven. Love overcomes larceny.Actor De Sica, of course, is the great actor/director who would later helm Mastroianni and Loren's most popular films together: MARRIAGE ITALIAN STYLE and YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW. This movie was made by veteran director Alessandro Blasetti, who had a sure hand with this sort of thing. And although it is not up to his greatest films of previous years like PRIMA COMUNIONE, QUATTRO PASSI FRA LE NUVOLE, and 1860, it is well-crafted and very enjoyable. A subsequent film Blasetti made a year later, LUCKY TO BE A WOMAN, pairs Mastroianni and Loren once again.